Gukesh Dommaraju’s first mistake in the battle against Hikaru Nakamura on Monday came even before they had sat on the board.
In what was one of the most intense huddles of the evening in Paris, during the second leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Monday, Gukesh spent 10 minutes talking tactics over the board with stars like Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura, Praggnanandhaa, Nodirbek Abdusattarov and his world championship second, Vincent Keymer. The six players were wargaming their moves with black pieces for the sixth and final classification game on Monday.
At the other end of the playing hall, another equally accomplished group of players led by Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Vidit Gujrathi and Arjun Erigaisi were plotting their own moves with white pieces.
It’s one of the unique aspects of the Freestyle Chess event that players only find out about the starting position for a match — in this case, position no 60 — 10 minutes before it actually begins. So, players are allowed to talk to other players who play with the same colour against other opponents. Only, Gukesh should have been at the other table considering he was playing with white pieces against Nakamura.
“Everybody’s losing their mind by this point,” chuckled grandmaster Peter Leko in the official broadcast when chess legend Judit Polgar pointed out Gukesh’s error while the endgame of Gukesh vs Nakamura was playing out.
“But in this position Gukesh would definitely want to be on the other side (playing with black pieces),” guffawed Polgar as vultures of death circled over Gukesh’s king in his final game of the day.
It was just that sort of a day for Gukesh. The Indian teenager was only able to defeat compatriot Arjun Erigaisi and hold Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to a draw on the first day of the Paris event where all 12 players played six rapid games each. They will be back to play five more games on Tuesday. The final eight players in the standings will compete in the quarter-finals.
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For Gukesh, there will be some solace in the fact that he at least managed to win a game, and that too one over Arjun, who has been in imperious form in freestyle chess, winning three online Freestyle Friday events in previous months. Unlike Arjun, who seems to have taken to the freestyle variant like a duck to water, Gukesh has struggled.
a meeting of the minds ♟️ #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/1oeBcrYgHN
— Chess.com (@chesscom) April 7, 2025
He had famously ended the first leg of the Freestyle Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus without a single win in the rapid or the classical games, ending in 8th spot among 10 players after just about sneaking into the quarters then. Making it to the quarters again might be a challenge in Paris, because Gukesh finds himself in 10th spot among 12 players after the first six classification games.
It must be noted that freestyle chess is almost like a completely different sport. Each game starts with the pieces on the backranks shuffled, which leaves the prospect of a game having 960 different starting positions. The idea of freestyle chess is to eliminate chess theory and take every game into uncharted territory from the opening phase itself.
This is why Gukesh, who is one of the best drilled chess players on the circuit, finds it difficult. Besides, he’s a calculation-based player who thrives in longer time control games rather than rapid and blitz events.
Arjun, meanwhile, leads the Indian quartet in the standings by ending Day 1 on the sixth position with victories over Caruana, Carlsen and Keymer, who had won the Weissenhaus leg. Praggnanandhaa is on 7th spot after defeating Nepo and Vidit. The newly-married Vidit is in last position having lost to everyone he played against, except Gukesh, who he defeated.
